


Faery Rings

by artemismoon12



Category: CPCoulter's Dalton
Genre: Body Horror, Fae & Fairies, Horror, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Self-Harm, Suicide, dark fae - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24932878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemismoon12/pseuds/artemismoon12
Summary: The edge of a faery circle is the furthest you should trace.Take heed young traveller, 'fore your soul's lain to waste.Turn back now, and scurry fast whilst you still can.For if you trip, or if you fall... you shall not find wonderland.
Relationships: Ethan Brightman & Evan Brightman, Ethan Brightman/Evan Brightman/Julian Larson-Armstrong, Ethan Brightman/Evan Brightman/Reed Van Kamp, Shane Anderson/Reed Van Kamp
Kudos: 2





	1. Julian's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Implied Non-Con.

The throne was made of thorns. There was a staircase leading to it: broken ivy, rotted on the vine where it lay, twisted in the path. It sprouted inexplicable flowers, curved white and plump into red fruit which burst in sour-scented splatters, like blood escaping a vein. The whole path was like that. Marked footprints of past prisoners.

Julian hadn’t listened to his hosts. They’d warned him of faery rings. How a circle of mushrooms with nothing else around it meant death, or worse. He couldn’t even tell them they were right. The two handsome faces were already fading. They’d warned him with a smile though; hadn’t they been kidding? He wish they had. What a sick joke.

Trees soared around them. His jailer led him by a thick vine lashed about his wrist. It tinkled like gold, and gripped with a living touch. The twittering branches were alive as well, faces flickering around the spiral tower of trunks that Julian didn’t know how he would escape.

The woman, if she could be called that, floated along in front of him. Her long blonde hair frayed at the edges. In the moonlight she looked beautiful, blue eyes and clear skin. She didn’t smile but he imagined if she did he could fall into her gaze. The glowing mushrooms in an ill blue revealed her true nature; skin of birch bark with curling nails which could be peeled like paper. Tall and ringed, she was the tree; his captor, his jailer.

The crest of the hill, the centre of the clearing was a climb he couldn’t see beyond. The eyes in the forest narrowed, judging their new captive.

The birch tree stopped, her feet reaching the ground and taking root in the soil. Thorns twined up Julian’s legs and kept him pierced and held. He couldn’t cry out. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Fires sprang up. He saw their eyes. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t scared.

“My, my dear sister. You brought us our prize.”

“A brand new toy, you know how we love to play.”

They were on him before he could pull away; flesh held fast, close to tearing. He bit back a cry. He closed his eyes, he didn’t want to see them.

“Don’t fight us dear one. You’re safe now.”

“We’re your new masters.”

Horizontal pupils stared back at him when he felt the pain crack across his face, forcing him to look at them.

“Now, now can’t you just say hello?”

“We’re quite kind.”

“We chose you specially after all.”

“We brought you to walk among us.”

“The Court is a beautiful place.”

“Don’t upset royalty.”

“Even a filthy American should know that.”

He could see insects running underneath their skin. The worms working in their flesh. The smell of soil filled his nostrils, fresh and dying at the same time. The hands sliding down his sides were sharp, drawing blood through the barbs growing from their grasp.

“Don’t.” Julian choked out. “Just send me back.”

They were part of the earth; older than he could even fathom. That’s why he thought they would listen. Maybe they had seen a thing like him before; because he could be sure there was nothing like them.

“But you could be tricky.” They cooed. The third hand touched his stomach, inspecting him. The pads of their fingers spouted moss, soft and spongey as it left a green streak across his skin. It was a relief of cold, a balm against the piercing thorns against his thighs.

“You’ve got wit.”

“And words you know how to use.”

“Scathing.”

“We’ve been watching you.”

“We know you’re lonely.”

“Just need some love.”

“We could adore you.”

“We play nice with all our things.”

A grunt from the trees. The two of them looked into the darkness. Julian tried to look for an escape but he was held fast.

“If I could? I saw him first.” The speaker could only been seen by the chips of green crystal, lit from within as it spoke.

“A prized find.” They congratulated.

“But we are the First Seeds.”

“And you know we get first pick.”

“It is our collection after all.”

“But I found it!” The green crystal demanded. “It’s my human!”

They laughed. “Who found?”

“Who lured?”

“Who caught?”

“Who ultimately chose?”

They stroked Julian’s cheek, “We did. We’ll make you beg for us, we promise. But if we get bored, we’ll lend you to our little faeling.”

“He’s demanding.”

“But so are we.”

The eyes around them were lit; a hundred colours of mindful fae. Fangs and branches and feathers and horns and veins and mushrooms and lichen and bark and talons and creepers- they seemed to shift and grow and wither in the same sentence. An in-between; a death that could not stick. The cycle of the forest floor played out in every face, the human and not.

Around his ankles the vines stretched up, as if feeling his fear. The forest would consume him, swallow him whole in a feast for thousands. Like the ivy the thorns turned. Up to meet the two sets of hands, pulling Julian closer to the forest floor. Flowers to berries to blood. His knees were soaked.

“Just let me go. I haven’t eaten anything. Isn’t that how the legends go?”

They smile. Their faces glimmer, a glamour. They are his hosts. The ones who warned him.

“Oh but didn’t you taste?”

“We did.”

“You were sweet.”

“Nectar even.”

“How sweet were we?”

Julian’s heart clenched.

Their grips around his throat matched.

“I can be good.”

“That’s what we thought.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original 4 tales were posted to Plurk, June 2018.  
> This story is based off a darker turn to Ethan & Evan's habits of "Collecting" people.   
> In the original story, they fill roles with the people they come across, already having predetermined roles of Lewis Carroll characters. They then look for someone to come and fit that mould.   
> I asked myself- if in faeryland, what are these roles? Who fits them? What happens if someone doesn't fit well? Who are Ethan and Evan in this game? What do they do with their collection? And, who, if anyone, can survive it?  
> \--  
> Julian's Tale originally featured him as the role of the Cheshire Cat, but running it by my friends reminded me that it came off a little petplay/fetishistic. So I decided to go with filling the roles of a Court; especially as I already broke with the strict Wonderland Theme for Tale #2. So instead, he plays the role of a Courtesan, passed from sprite to sprite in the court. Ethan and Evan as First Seeds have first dibs; but Logan, Adam, and the other implied sprites will be allowed their turns.


	2. Dwight's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Body Horror; Choking/Strangulation.

It wasn’t a cage. They didn’t keep him there long enough to ever truly keep him chained. If anything, they liked when he was free, when he ran, when he got another breath of free air only to hake it choked away from him.

He couldn’t have been here more than a day. Except his body was screaming for food, the hair tickling his chin telling him it had been far longer. He couldn’t think, couldn’t do much except fight. As soon as he sated himself, he’d never leave. He still had a chance; he could still win.

He’d taken one with him. Or maybe he hadn’t. A bone, bleached white from the sun, shattered in his hand as he shoved it into the throat of a laughing, blue eyed sprite. But he heard the same laughs, gurgling from a punctured throat behind him. He turned to see nothing, just empty hands and shards of white across the ground.

There was no cage. They hadn’t needed one. Not when a pit could open at any moment, stabbing into his skin with exposed roots like organic knives; crawling under the rags he could still, for now, call clothes. The soil would pour in, a gaping maw to be filled with him as the main course.

Each time he saw the boundary, the way out, he was stopped. Like mirrors he’d be turned around and spat back out. Dwight’s lungs were filled with dirt, tasting only the earth when he tried to scream. They couldn’t silence him. They would not make him compliant.

How long would it last this time? How long would they keep him here? They may have lured others into the branches with coaxing words, but not Dwight. He was keen. He had leapt into the ring of his own accord. He’d seen the stories of the man who disappeared; but he’d never believed the fight had disappeared from him so easily.

When he had seen his mark, the one whose mother had paid him to find, he called out. His voice echoed, a risk in the lull of silence. The sleepy courtesan of the court blinked slowly. Dwight tried to pull him from the branches but he hissed. Content in his cage he was an animal already. The briar around him tightened.

“You can’t.” He shook his head. “I’m happy.”

“No you’re not.” Dwight said. “Your mother wants you back. I can get you home.”

“I’m happy. I love my masters.” He curled up tighter as the thorns protected him as soon as they would shred him. His words were a mantra. Dwight could see that clearer than he. Passed from sprite to fae to sprite again as he was, he still chanted it- rolling over and exposing his belly to their captors.

“I’m going to-”

The Courtesan’s eyes sprang open. Roots sprung from the ground. Dwight was on his face, pulled along like an eagle from the nest in speed. He felt his nose break, he swallowed the taste.

“A hunter.” The amusement in the creature’s voice was evident.

“But is it The Huntsman?”

“He could be.”

“We’ll have to test him.”

“He’s pretty, perhaps we should-”

“Oh, only after we test him. We can’t have him if he’s not our hunter.”

Dwight fumbled for his gun, already loaded and cocked as he shot at the thing that presumed to capture him. The bullet left a spread of splintered bark and twitching beetles between the creature’s eyes.

The roots knotted around Dwight’s wrists. He felt a hoof on his chest before he could curse it out. It was cloven like a satyr but attached to a leg that was very much human.

Dwight went to fire again, but the smooth wood of his saw-off sprouted in his hand.

He cried out, the branches shooting out around his arm, meeting their brethren in the ground. He was trapped against the dirt, thrashing with no way to escape. This thing caught in the in-betweens staring back at him with an empty cavern filling up with rot.

The hoof pressed down with the lightness of a summer’s wind. It was cool, his ribs creaking with the mischievous threat of fun.

“So maybe you are him.”

“Though our hunter would never eat willingly.”

“We wouldn’t make you choke us down.”

“But our hunter would never lose.”

“But if you win, you’re not The Huntman we want.” The laugh sounded across the trees, echoing into the laughter of the birds as they sprang up into a chorus of caws.

The kitten watched, his bare legs dangling down from the branch where he lay wrapped in roses and thorns. A pair of red crystals watched his back.

“And if you’re not our hunter,” The first asked.

His brother answered, “then why should we let you live?”

“Run.” The red crystals mocked.

The crows dived. Dwight felt his flesh as they ate him.

And it would start again tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dwight's Tale is one of my favourite for the imagery of it all. I broke from the Wonderland Theme to have Dwight act as more of a Huntsman/Hunter archetype in a more classical sense. Think, the Huntsman in Snow White; a servant of the crown and a tool for Royal Hunts and games. He's caught in a catch 22 with this role however, because Ethan and Evan require endurance from him, but he cannot go on forever.  
> The role of Faery Food and hospitality is also looming; though not as important to this tale, rather showing how capricious the twins can be with their games.


	3. Reed's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self Harm/Suicide Triggers; Implied Drug Use/Forced Drug Use; Sexual encounters under the use of drugs/magic.

He had seen paradise.

It wasn’t hard to imagine. The flowers opening into buds, small curled creatures waking with a yawn as dawn broke. He had seen waterfalls of every colour, spilling into inlets deep enough for the smiling youth to invite him in- dragging him under the water, begging him swim with them forever in jewel-toned waters amongst fish of a thousand sparkling hues. He’d lain on rocks under a sky which stretched for leagues he could only start to trek, under clouds which rang with airy laughter, feathers drifting against his face; kissing his skin until they saw the mark on his shoulder.

The sun shone when they wanted it to shine. The wind blew when they wanted it to blow. Trees bowed to them, each subject waiting their turn to be acknowledged.

In comparison the New York skyline was a blur. A blue and yellow morning that winked for an instant before sinking into a dull mix of greys. He wanted to blot it all out and return to the vibrant greens and brilliant reds, the turning leaves that matched his hair. They had kissed his shoulder to leave that mark, burning into his skin as they laid him into the crisp, bright leaves and decorated him in colour.

Reed splattered paint against the canvas, trying in vain to get the colours the same. He couldn’t.

He had stumbled into the ring by accident. He was always clumsy, but this way, headfirst into the riot of moods and emotions and breathing plants. The fruit was heavy on the branch. He saw nothing more than another apple in the quaint town he was visiting. But it was after he’d eaten his fill that he saw the world was not the same.

He didn’t know what possessed him to eat it. But it had called to him. Like now the world was calling him back.

He had been greeted by a young fawn; curls as wild as the circle dance behind him. His ears were long and brown, his tail swept the ground; but Reed saw nothing amiss. The wine in his hand was never full enough, the adoring smile on his greeter’s face never faltered. That feeling of heady attention, of want, of desire had him toppling forward into a pile he should have questioned; but could not for the life of him doubt. He belonged here; he was part of this.

“You wriggled your way into our little world.”

“Into our house, like a mouse.”

“Like your silly human stories. Shall you be changed to our footman?”

“Would you like that little mouse? To transform and live with us?”

“Be ours?”

“Little one.”

“Darling.”

The voices were echoes of each other, passing thoughts between Reed’s ears. He had blinked at it was night. He didn’t know where the curly haired fawn had gone; or where his clothes were; or if it was wine or food or blood that streaked his body. He just felt the eyes of the forest on him, as well as the eyes of his hosts and felt no shame.

Chained away behind the food, behind the wine, behind the heady perfume of flowers taller than his head was his self. His true self. That Reed was crying.

Instead the words out of his mouth were, “Thank you. It’s so beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“We’d be pleased to show you paradise.”

“Our world.”

“Just don’t make us squash you.”

“Mice are vermin after all.”

“Plague.”

“Pestilence.”

Reed smiled, giggling like they’d paid him a compliment. He felt his body in their hands, mushrooms growing up his leg and eating away at his skin. “Could I get some more wine?”

They smiled, the pairs of horizonal pupils blinking in perfect sync. “So greedy.”

“Drink up.”

The cup was tipped down his throat. He drank deeply, choking a few times as it seemed endless. His curls were soaked, the stream relentless. He flailed, pushing the cup away with a gasp, sitting up into the waiting arms of an unfamiliar body.

“We share with you, you must share as well.”

“It’s the rules of hospitality.”

“We’re sure you’ll be accommodating.”

“We throw the most magnificent parties.”

“Do have a good time.”

His hosts bit down on his shoulder, a crescent moon etched into his skin as quickly as the moss covered crowd descended upon him. He cried out, the ecstasy of mania burrowing into his vocal chords and letting nothing else remain until he was simply crying.

Exhaustion was not an option though; sunrise kept arriving and they did not relent until the Huntsman- or perhaps just a hunter- burst through.

He was tall and dark. Not dark like the animals who crawled over him, stinking of brittle grass and new shoots; but just brown hair, ordinary, a smudge, a shadow.

Reed stabbed his paintbrush down again, the greens mixing with the blues and somehow only getting brown. But the word wasn’t just brown- the Hunter was just brown. Because the Hunter didn’t belong. Reed belonged.

There was a vine growing through the Huntsman’s shoulder, and his hand was picked to the bone from a crow who pecked at it still. Somehow he still ran. He screamed at Reed to come with him; but like the kitten in the tree he shook his head. Unlike the kitten, he didn’t know why he said it.

“Come with me!” The Huntsman screamed, putting out his good hand.

The crow shrieked its satisfaction, tasting flesh and wanting more. Reed heard its voice, it’s suggestions in his head. His hosts behind that as well. That hidden part of himself screamed. He bit down and tore.

The Huntsman was gone.

The Courtesan was gone.

The crows and creatures and the curly haired boy were gone.

Just his hosts, kissing the blood off his lips as he chewed and swallowed. The colours swirled around him. They toured him round, they touted him as their jewel, their prize. He was so precious, so dear. Look how much he loved them. The holes in his hosts back held his gaze, the hallow inside of their bark large enough to crawl inside and hide.

The mermaids tried to drown him again and he laughed. He hadn’t ever felt so happy.

Reed finally threw the brushes to the ground. It was impossible. He had blinked and he was back in that field. He tried to explain but no one understood. No one else had seen the world.

He tried to get the yellow right, the same shade as the sunlight off his hosts’ claws curling down around his jaw. It was only a pale imitation.

He tried to mix the blues into the same pure cerulean of their ethereal sister’s eyes. It turned sour on his brush and dripped to the floor in failure.

He tried to get the red, scarlet like the blood he’d had from that Hunter; hot and pulsing under his teeth. It didn’t live. The paint could not live. Only blood could live.

Reed took his palette knife and sliced his hand – there! That was the red! That was the world! He was there! He was finding it! He was going back!

Another cut, and another cut, and another cut! He was home! He had found paradise.

He cut one more time and the faces of his hosts peered at him from between the seams of his skin.

“Oh little one.”

“What a shame.”

“You were not our Mouse.”

“Not our ready to change footman.”

“Nothing like a story.”

“But you are vermin.”

“But you’ve seen paradise.”

“And it seems you can’t live without it.”

“We shall have to give you mercy.”

“Would you like that?”

Reed dropped the palette knife with a clatter. “Just take me home. I can’t stand it. Take me home with you please!”

“Oh of course little one.”

“We will give you that.”

“Anything you ask.”

His mother found his body. Hospitality of the highest order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also one of the original four chapters; this is one which went through a little tweaking because I thought using the Wonderland title of "Dormouse" for Reed was harder. But it also shows how he didn't really fit the world set out here. They liked him, but creating this title for him just to add him to the collection ultimately didn't work out; so he was expelled from the circle. And well... it was not for the better.  
> This is the chapter I'm quite proud of, and the one my non-Dalton friends, gravitated the most towards because it shows the boundaries of the two worlds, how they interact, and a more complex struggle than just 'dark fae' vs. 'poor humans'.


	4. Kurt's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Referenced Suicide, kidnapping; Homophobia.

There had been rumours circling about the field in Albion, New York. It had at one time simply been an apple field. The farm still stood, but the owners were long gone. Peeling red paint and a “Brightman Farms and Mill” were all that was left.

One would expect that everything would seem overgrown. The grass was long, the trees hadn’t been pruned, but it still told a story of a domicile with a happy home. That once this farm had hosted school trips, community votes, and a family working hard.

Kurt Hummel was a reporter. Over the years people had disappeared from Albion. At first it had been transients, a note that the visitors never came back. The first notable one had been Julian Larson, whose mother had posted a sizeable reward for her baby to be brought back to her. The subsequent searchers turned up with nothing, or never turned up at all.

And it wasn’t just that people seemed to fall off the map at Albion. The entire New York Art Scene had been shaken when Reed Van Kamp, a prominent abstract painter had released an entire collection of otherworldly pieces before his suicide. Kurt’s employer had requested an expose on it; madness in the art scene was romanticized, sold for a profit in its disintegrating beauty. Had it been a lover? Drugs? Debts?

The centre of that spiral of rumours led Kurt to the same place that Reed Van Kamp had been. He hadn’t made the connection until the tornado of theories spat him out here.

“Brightman Farms.” Kurt mumbled to himself, hopping the gate and making his way along the gravel path. Ferns poked from between the sand and rock, dried in the midsummer sun. He took a photo with his phone, archiving it to his current story folder. Maybe it was something in the field, a sinkhole? A toxic plant? He’d brought gloves just in case.

The farm equipment was untouched as it had been since 1993, back when the farm closed down. A lack of funds. The family had tried to keep it running as a Bed and Breakfast but couldn’t keep it afloat. His research told him that was when Julian Larson had stayed there.

Some had thought it was murder; but people were still coming from Albion changed. The family had been gone for years. A pair of brothers, Ethan and Evan still owned it in trust, but he couldn’t see anything that seemed out of place.

The birds chirped in the apple trees overhead. He entered the briar of wild roses, coiled around the base of the trees. Van Kamp had visited this place for inspiration; the old farm a state of decay, surrounded by such beautiful growth. Kurt pictured himself following the same path as the late artist, kicking stones and tripping over brambles. He could see the image, reaching out to pluck an apple and toss the core over his shoulder. The fruit was small and green, unripe now. He couldn’t attempt it if he even wanted to.

There were raspberry brambles, blackberries as well edging the fence near the front. But here it was all lines and lines of apples let to grow. They kept their straight lines, sprouting as they would, but the lines of domestication needing more time to shake.

“What is it about this place? Where did you all go?” Kurt asked aloud. He went to take another picture and send it to his boss. Oh. No service. Well, it was the middle of rural New York he shouldn’t be too surprised. He saved it and walked in deeper.

The scarf around his neck was a light rayon, a refined addition to a collared shirt in the city, but needless out here in the fields. The navy fabric twirled in the breeze, touching his face as it was almost cool under the shade from the sun. He brushed the hair off his face, looking for any sign of something out of the ordinary.

Nowadays locals just told tourists to stay away from the fields. There was something not right about them. An old man with keen green eyes had laughed at Kurt’s questions, rocking away on his porch drinking a lemonade. “My boy Logan was never right I tell you. He wasn’t right like those Brightmans ain’t right.”

“Mr. Wright, what are you saying? How long has this been going on for?” Kurt had asked, his tablate out and recording.

“Before I was a boy. People are just noticing now.” John Wright said, his chair turned towards the farm in question. Like he was waiting for something to come out from the grass with ill intent. “They shoulda noticed back then.”

“May I speak with your son? Is he one of the ones who went missing?”

“Missing?” John laughed. “He was never all there anyways. Half a fairy already before he ever went back.”

Kurt couldn’t find conclusive records on where John Logan Wright III had gone. Only that he, like the others, dropped off the map at Albion.

His feet took him to the open part of the fields. Out where soil had been tilled once; ready for an expansion of agriculture that never came. The family must have run out of money first Kurt thought as the sun beat down, making him squint as he surveyed the space around him.

He swatted the midges as they flew at his face; flies without carrion, and he would not be theirs. If only bodies had been found on the farm, it would make more sense honestly. Maybe they were buried? But it wouldn’t explain Van Kamp.

Kurt spotted a strange patch of grass. “Wait.”

He’d developed this habit of talking to himself, formulating ideas with himself as a commentator. As if he had someone else as a sidekick. He could figure it out by himself, only himself advising him.

Back in college he’d remembered something like this. Someone else, Hendricks maybe, had said it. A ring of mushrooms, plain grass, more lush and green then that around it… nourished by a high-grade fertiliser. Oh if he was right, if he found Julian Larson: “It would be the scoop of a century!”

He didn’t have a shovel, but he had strong hands and a camera in his phone. He headed towards it, and as he stopped short of the ring he felt a trickle at the back of his neck.

Not strange, he was sweating, it was hot out.

But usually, sweat wasn’t accompanied by breathing.

As he stumbled forward, trying to turn and see who was behind him the world shifted. Poles misaligned and the tornado turning back it’s spiral.

With only his phone left outside the ring of mushrooms, photo of nothing but a grassy blur, Kurt Hummel became part of the rumours.

John Wright sipped his lemonade. Never quite right, those boys. Never quite right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought for a moment about editing this and making this Todd, instead of Kurt- but I still do like having Kurt as a reporter. Todd would be the reporter who would hopefully bring a partner to such a place. So I just snuck a Todd reference in there, and kept it mostly as is.


	5. Wes' Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Body Horror; Animal Abuse.

“Look at him! A will on the wind.” The voices rang around him.

“We’ll sweep him up!”

“Eat him up.”

“Mop him up! My hat for him! It’s red you see!”

“I see!”

“I see!”

Wes couldn’t see them, only hear the sounds through sun-dappled trees. He turned, looking for the way out of the wood. It only resulted in response.

“Hello? Hey David, you’re not funny. Remember, that’s my job!” He forced a smile, turning on his heel with a spring in his step. 

A rustle. The bushes twitched. He stepped backwards faltering, scared. No service, no one around, just him and the voices.

Surely, he could just keep moving forward? The sun was high in the sky, warm above even when he felt the ice spreading through his veins. Something was wrong. It was so wrong.

He fell, face finding the ground with a smear of red across his cheek. The root which caught his foot appearing from nowhere; the path had been smooth and well travelled. He had only to continue along it before he was back in the orchard.

He whispered. “Hello?” Where had the voices gone? His phone had spilled from his pocket, leaving a trail of broken glass in the dirt and rocks. He sighed, reaching out to collect the pieces, prying up rocks as well from their deep-set impressions.

One rock pulled back.

“Hey!” He shouted, his finger caught and pulled into the impression.

“My hat for him!”

“It’s red we know!”

“Eat the boy!”

“No! They’ll want him first!”

He tried to pull his finger out but he felt teeth close around his nail and clamp down. The sharp pain twinged through his arm. Wes screamed and yanked his hand back, pulling with it a vole greedily sucking up his blood. He shook, but the rodent would not give up. Its eyes twinkled, its mouth smirked; the creature winked at him as he tried to shake it off, unable to budge it as blood ran down his hand.

He got up, shaking his arm and spinning. The force did not let the vole go, chewing at his digit like a child’s first treat. Wes was erratic, kicking glass and rocks and dirt about, shrieking in pain.

“I’m too young to get rabies! Shit! Come on, let me go you fucking ro-”

“Oh he’s funny.”

“Watch him dance around.”

“What a show.”

“Like a jester.”

“What it?”

“Jester!”

“The Jester!”

Wes finally threw his hand back down against the ground, snapping the vole’s neck and prying it’s jaw off his hand. He couldn’t feel his finger, the flesh mangled and raw. A burrowing tongue had slipped the skin off bone and he couldn’t look at it without shaking. He swore to himself, looking around for help, only seeing blinding light and impossible shadows. 

He pressed his finger to his mouth on impulse, a childish urge to tuck his lips around it until it all felt better. But tasting the dark tang of copper, he jerked away; wondering if he’d just make it worse. The vole’s spit was there after all. It couldn’t be safe.

The sun shone; beating down against his neck, a heat pressing into his skin as he knelt in front of the half-broken vole. He bowed his head, the heat felt heavy. He called out. No one answered. Was the blood on his hand stemmed? Or did id just divert into the pool under the small, crooked animal in front of him.

“He’s not dancing.”

“He should be merry.”

“He killed it though.”

“Then let him be merry for us.”

“A Jester.”

“Our Jester?”

Wes started, a pair of hands on his shoulders, snaking around his neck with hot hands and cold grins. The vole in front of him was gone, maggots on fur and bones squiggling on the broken ground. It was too warm. He couldn’t breathe.

“You took our servant from us.” The voice in his left ear crooned, digging five fingernails of bark along his back, shredding fabric which was already rotting in the punishing sunlight. He tingled, the legs of flies flitting to his bared skin and finding purchase on the scabs. 

“You littered his home with glass.”

“Your punishment should fit.”

“A broken neck too?”

Wes whimpered. “I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up. But it bit me-”

“Because you upended his hat.”

“A pebble hat.”

“A red pebble cap to mop it all up.”

The voice in his right ear laughed. “Should we upend you?”

Wes swallowed, seeing the maggots slough off the rapidly turning bones to crawl towards him. “I, I’m sorry.”

The voices in the trees jeered, wicked cheers for his misfortune. Wes couldn’t turn. The bark snapped, fingers coming away but the birch-white sheets curling up and around his torso. He could see bright white pieces, spreading across his chest with their deep black knotted eyes. They stared back at him, held in place by the fiery sun. Would he burst into flames? Would he smoulder out?

“You danced so pretty though.” The right one said, twirling into view with a glimpse of gold-blonde hair and a mossy grin. “It was funny.”

“Dance again.”

The stones under his feet cut; his shoes swallowed by the earth.

“Dance Jester.”

Hot under his feet, and cracked like the glass he scattered across the ground, Wes would only hop. Skipping and jumping and crying out in pain. His feet opened up, pooling like the vole’s neck, like his sucked-finger.

“Stop it!” He cried. “I didn’t mean it!”

“Didn’t you?”

The chorus of voices rang out, “He did! He did!”

“Make the human dance!”

“Silly humans, pretending they don’t know the rules.”

The cool lips pressed against his; reaching in to stab his shoulders, wooden grip spearing his muscles to upend him onto his hands. The topsy turvy motion forcing cartwheels he could not control, but run through in terror as his skin was moved under a cloth of bark he could not control.

Wes’ hands burned; each finger opened up to a new host of voles who poured out of the bushes. Jewel eyed skinks, marmosets, and weasels joining their number tenfold to taunt and bite. Each touch back to the ground he made, leaping higher and higher from their jaws only drowned his arms in their squirming, unanimous purpose. He felt heavy; each impossible jump pulled out of him tearing at his joints, screaming for something to give.

“Motley would suit you.” The twin voices said, their court agreeing; cracked glass laughs absorbing from the littered soil. The harm he did to them turned back upon him.

“Motley in checks, from head to toe.”

“Lighten your load.”

“Lighten our laughter.”

The wind rushed through the trees, shifting branches crackling with charged throats echoing their overlords desires.

“His cap! His cap!”

“Eat him up!”

The twins tisked at their chorus, “So on the nose.”

Wes swallowed back bile, a set of incisors gnashing against his leg and clawing its way inside him in triumph. Another followed, another after that. He felt his stomach heave, blinding him as his hands were set in the squirming mass of tails and teeth. They were under his skin. They were inside his body. He couldn’t even wipe what little he’d lost out of his eyes, feet in the air burning with pain in the blazing sun.

“Motley it be.”

“For our motley crew, and Jester dear.” The clawed wood traced down his leg towards his groin, weasels scattering away from the touch of – whatever this thing was. A living tree? A spirit of the forest? He was losing it. This was a nightmare. Wes just wake up!

“Won’t he look funny?” The other hands pinched the bark and tugged. It hurt. Why did it hurt? The bark was just on top of him; it was just bark.

Then they pulled and white exploded behind his eyes, star bright and painful. Each check and diamond of bark they pulled, revealing bright red muscle veined in blue, was set upon by voles with aching bellies. It dripped down his body, choking his pleas for mercy.

“I’m sorry.” A tail slipped between his lips, darting in and out in sour measure. “I-” he gagged, “I’m sorry.”

A diamond was peeled off his thigh; he screamed. It wasn’t enough. What would be enough?

“Make us laugh, then our tears of laughter can heal yours.”

“I’m trying!” He couldn’t move his arms. Couldn’t jump for all the pestilence on his frame, for all the pain they pulled from his throat.

“Oh, try harder dear Jester.” 

A rat emerged, digging its way out of his belly with a curious look.

“Be merry.”

“We’re quite amused already.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Daltonfic Big Bang 2020; Week 4, Day 6; Horror   
> I thought this was a perfect prompt to add to Dark Fae AU- but considering I never uploaded it to my fanfic blog maybe I ought to just bypass that and put it on AO3 because I need the tags. This is a dark story y'all!   
> Wes' Tale is specifically based off mythology of Red Caps, hospitality myths, and fae testing human morality.   
> Wes also fits into the Faery Ring Court because, as the funniest boy, why wouldn't he be their Jester?


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